


Thank You for Calling

by jujubiest



Series: Coldflash Trope-iness [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Customer Service & Tech Support, I don't know what I'm doing with my life, M/M, Phone Flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-16 18:37:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5836423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barry Allen is a technical support specialist who's ready to go off on the next rude-ass dumbshit that calls.</p><p>Leonard Snart is the next rude-ass dumbshit who calls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thank You for Calling

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know why I did this. Also I edited this fucker on my phone, so forgive me if I missed anything.

“Thank you for calling S.T.A.R. Labs Technical Support. This is Barry speaking, how may I help you?”

“Yeah, hi, this is Ellie from purchasing? I’m having trouble getting my computer to connect to the internet?”

“Okay Ellie. Are you using a Mac or a PC?”

“Uhhmmmm…how do I know?”

Barry fought the urge to sigh in the woman’s ear. It was going to be another one of those calls, he could already feel it. He forced his face into a smile; he knew she couldn’t see it, but she would hear it in his voice, and it would make him sound less like he wanted to throw the phone through the nearest window.

“Look at the bottom left corner of your screen. Do you see a big button that says ‘Start,’ a little ball with four colored squares, a solid-colored bar with four white squares, or nothing at all?”

“I see the little ball!” She said, sounding far too excited about it. Barry put a little extra enthusiasm into his voice in response anyway.

“That’s great, Ellie! You’re on a PC, most likely running Windows 7. Now, in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen, do you see a little row of icons?”

And so it went, until Barry finally hung up the phone an exhausting twenty minutes later. Ellie’s internet was back, so at least she was happy.

He gave himself a good sixty seconds worth of a breather, then sighed and leaned forward, opening up the log system to record the details of the call.

The phone rang again. Barry groaned.

* * *

An hour later, Barry hung up the phone after his sixth consecutive call. There was a pounding starting behind his eyes and an itchy tension between his shoulder blades. He’d barely kept his cool through calls two, four, and five, and caller six had been an absolute jerk who implied Barry was an idiot for suggesting he should plug his Ethernet cable in…only to hang up ungraciously when it turned out that the damn thing actually was unplugged.

He stretched, groaning at the series of near-painful popping noises and the instant relief, and then stared helplessly at the log screen, unsure how he would remember all the details. He wasn’t even sure he’d gotten the last guy’s name right.

“Dude had to be a mumbler, on top of everything else,” he muttered, cracking his knuckles and getting to it. He managed to log all of three calls before the phone rang again.

“Oh, c’mon!” He was going to be so behind on his call logs.

Barry honestly, truly used to love this job. He liked helping people out, and he was good with computers. But after a couple of years of the same questions over and over again, and more than a handful of people who look the distance provided by phone as a license to be an asshole, he was getting fed up. Waking up for work was harder and harder. He often found himself watching the clock, waiting for six o'clock to hit. He spent every moment he was out of the office dreading going back.

He knew he ought to quit, look for something else. But jobs weren’t easy to come by, especially not for people his age. Most of the kids he’d gone to college with were either couch surfing or still living with their parents, and none of them were really kids anymore, exactly.

Still. Much more of this, and Barry was going to do something desperate.

* * *

It was 5:58. Two minutes, and he could turn off the phones and go home. Just two minutes. He’d been at work since nine, had lost count of the number of phone calls, and had barely bitten back the urge to yell at the last three callers, who had been almost as rude as they were clueless.

If I have to deal with one more rude-ass dumbshit tonight, I’m going to lose it, he thought.

5:59. Barry reached for the “Call Off” button.

The phone rang.

“You’ve gotta be _fucking_ kidding me!” He yelled, unable to hold it in and glad, for once, that he was the only one in the building most nights after five.

He considered letting it go to the answering service, but no…technically, it was before six, and he had to answer it.

He took a deep breath, picked up the phone, and quickly hit the “Call Off” button, just to make sure no more would come in.

“Thank you for calling S.T.A.R. Labs Tech Suppo—”

“Is this tech support?” A man’s voice interrupted. Barry grit his teeth and forced a smile.

“Yes it is. How may I help you?”

“I’m getting…frustrated. Your mobile app doesn’t work.” The voice managed to sound both bored and accusatory, and Barry breathed through his nose, slowly. _Calm. Helpful_.

“I’m sorry to hear you’re having trouble with our mobile app, sir,” he said. “Can I ask what error message you’re receiving?”

“I'm not getting any error message."

Barry paused, brow furrowed, then decided to just start from the beginning.

“What kind of device are you using?”

“My phone,” the man snapped. _Deep breaths, Barry._

“Yes," he forced out. “But are you using an iPhone or an Android?”

“Android. Listen, I have these instructions printed out, and they’re crap. They say to enter your username and password, but there’s nowhere to enter it!”

Barry blinked, holding the phone away from his ear to stare incredulously at it for a moment.

“Sir. Did…did you go to the Google Play store and download the app?”

“No. I have to do that? It doesn’t say anything about downloading anything on these instructions!”

“On your phone’s applications menu, you should see an icon for the Play Store,” Barry said, as patiently as he could manage. “You can search for the application name and download it there for free.”

“It doesn’t say that anywhere on here!” The guy said again, practically growled it at him. “You need to write better instructions if you want people to actually be able to use this stuff, kid.”

Aaaaand…that was it. Barry was done. He practically heard something snap in his brain. He gripped the phone a little tighter, and when he spoke he could hear how the smile had dropped out of his voice completely.

“Actually, sir, I didn’t write the instructions personally. However, I’ll be happy to let our documentation and training department know to add that incredibly _obvious_ piece of information to our mobile references, because apparently our target audience doesn’t understand that to _use_ a mobile app you actually have to _have it on your phone in the first place_! Oh, and by the way—”

He pulled up the document on his computer as he was speaking, scanning the first page. His eyes zeroed in on the second line.

“—maybe you should check those instructions again, asshole, because it tells you where to download the app on the first page!”

And then, before the drawling voice could say anything else, he slammed the phone down, ending the call.

There was a silence, during which it took approximately four seconds for Barry’s stomach to drop to his shoes as he realized he’d just yelled at, insulted, and hung up on a customer.

When did he even start yelling?

_Oh, shit._

He frantically scrolled through the caller ID, hoping to call back and try to apologize. He knew it was hopeless; the caller ID got wiped at the end of every day, as soon as the “Call Off” button was pressed.

He’d sealed his own fate twice in less than five minutes. Fantastic.

He gave up and shut off his computer. There was nothing else he could do about it tonight except go home and hope and pray the guy wouldn’t try to call back tomorrow to get him fired.

Oh, and update his resume. Just in case.

* * *

Barry spent most of the next day on the edge of his seat, jumping every time the phone rang and bracing himself to hear that voice again. He kept expecting his manager to come in and tell him to clean out his desk. Surprisingly, she didn’t, and the guy never called back.

Today was much less hectic than yesterday had been, which was probably good, because Barry was too distracted to have been much use. By the time five o’clock rolled around and everyone else disappeared, he was practically twitching with the need to get out of that office. 

He watched the minutes tick by on the clock until it was finally one minute to six.

The phone rang.

“Oh god.” He gulped. He reached slowly for the phone, sick with trepidation. He picked it up and put it to his ear, bracing himself.

“Thank you for calling S.T.A.R. Labs Technical Support. This is Barry speaking, how may I help you?”

A soft, throaty laugh came through the line.

“Barry. That’s an interesting name. Is this the guy that called me an asshole yesterday?”

Barry squeezed his eyes shut.

“Um. Possibly?” There was no use in denying it. If he lied and the guy called back when his manager was here, she would know he was the only one still here working that late.

“Thought so,” the voice drawled. “Listen…I thought I’d call back and say I checked your instructions. You were right…says it right there on the second line at the top of the page. Sorry about that, kid.”

Barry was…confused. That was the word.

“Wait…did you just call back a _day later_ to apologize for _me_ calling _you_ an asshole?”

There was that laugh again, low and warm. Barry felt his face heating up, though he couldn’t imagine why.

“No. I called back a day later to apologize for _being_ an asshole. Although I gotta say, it’s not every day I get yelled at by tech support. The customer is always right, or so they say.”

“Uh, yeah,” Barry said sheepishly. “Listen…I’m really sorry. If I can do anything else for you, help you out with anything, just let me know.” _And please, please, please don’t tell my boss_ , he didn’t say, because he didn’t want to give this smug-yet-attractive-sounding bastard any ideas.

_Wait, what?_

He didn’t have time to dissect his own mind’s bizarre turn of thought, though, because Mr. Husky Laughter was talking again.

“I’ll be sure to do that, _Barry_. I’ve got your number, after all.”

Barry had to fight a groan and a smile at the same time, face heating further at the suggestive way that voice wrapped around his name. It was such transparently cheesy flirting, and when exactly had this turned into flirting, again?

“Uh, yep,” he said absently, and immediately hung up on the man...for the second time in two nights.

It took him a moment to realize what he’d done. Then:

“Oh, _fuck_.”


End file.
